As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
A portable computer is one type of an information handling system. Examples of portable computers include laptop computers, notebook computers, and hand-held computers. Although portable computers are smaller than desktop computers, portable computers may provide equal computing power. Thus a portable computer may be preferable over a desktop computer because of the portable feature.
Portable computer designs may reduce certain component sizes, such as a monitor or keyboard, to achieve the portable feature. In some instances, the designs eliminate certain computer components to reduce the weight and size of the computer to further achieve portability. In other designs, components such as optical disk drives and floppy disk drives may be provided as a modular interchangeable media device to allow users to select a computer component for use. In further designs, the size of the computer housing may be reduced, which does not permit a user to place standard sized expansion cards, such as peripheral component interconnect (PCI) cards in the housing.
To allow a user the option of having access to other computer components and to connect to a network, a portable computer may be connected to a docking station. The portable computer may attach to the docking station for interconnecting with other computer components connected to the docking station. For example, a docking station may provide interconnections with standard sized computer components such as a monitor or full-sized keyboard, or allow for an additional media device, such as a hard disk drive or digital video disk (DVD” drive, to be used with the portable computer. Some docking stations may provide auxiliary ports for placing standard sized expansion cards that can be accessed by the portable computer.
Due to the ease of portability, portable computers are prone to theft. Additionally, docking stations and any computer components connected to the docking station may also be prone to theft. Therefore, many users desire to incorporate security features into their docking stations. Unfortunately, conventional techniques for adding these features are often overly complex and burdensome. Often, the conventional techniques for adding security features to a docking station force a user to interact with the security features to separately lock and unlock the portable computer and each of the various component devices protected by the security feature. Various locking devices can be both confusing for the user and expensive to implement.